I could’ve told her exactly when it’d changed. In the last few days of August, when Eddie and I had traveled through the wormhole, and whatever Alex had started went from bad to worse.
“Do you think Eddie changed it?” she said.
It wasn’t Eddie who had changed it. History had changed it. To “fit in.”
The real question was: why had she noticed it?
She shouldn’t have noticed the changes. The trails that a new history blazed into the old history should’ve been invisible to her. And even if she did notice them, she should’ve blamed the changes on her faulty memory and dismissed them. That’s how this works.
But she didn’t dismiss it. Why?
It took me just another second to come up with the reason. It was the same reason that Eddie had noticed the changes. She’d been sucked into the vortex. Had Eddie sucked her in? Had Alex?
Had I?
She’d said that I’d spoken to her about my Einstein research during the memorial service. Not the “me” that was standing here now, but me nonetheless.
“Did you tell anyone else about this?” I asked.
“I was going to tell Mila, and take her up here this weekend, but now I don’t have to. You’re the person who needed to see this.” She looked at the magazine, took a breath, and turned to me. “So what does it mean?”
I couldn’t tell her what it meant without telling her the entire story, and that meant sucking her into the vortex even more. Van Doran would kill her just as surely as he’d killed Alex. So telling her the truth was handing her a death sentence.
And that led to a worse possibility. Was she already in danger? Had she already crossed over into knowing too much?
Dread coursed through me. “I don’t know what it means,” I said.
“You don’t know? Or you won’t tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know who changed the magazine?”
“Let’s go.” I wanted to get her out of here and as far away from the vortex as possible. There was always the hope that her memories would change and Van Doran wouldn’t have to go after her. She’d forget the old history and live in the new one.
At the same time, I also had a very selfish motive for getting her out. I wanted to come back here, alone, break into that case, and read that article. The clue to resurrecting Einstein’s secret was in there.
I headed out of the cabin, hoping she’d follow.
She did. “Who changed the magazine?” she asked, again.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you, and I think you know a lot more than you’re saying.”
The vortex was getting stronger.
I started down the trail. “This isn’t that big of a deal.” I was hoping I sounded calm enough to cover up my blatant lie. “I’m sure it’s just some kind of prank.”
“Why on earth would someone pull a prank like that? And why does it involve Einstein? Which means it involves you somehow.”
We were out of the sight of the cabin. “I have to go to the bathroom. Go ahead and keep hiking and I’ll catch up.”
“Sounds like you’re avoiding my interrogation,” she said, and moved past me. “I’ll go slow.”
Not too slow, I thought, and not because I was avoiding her interrogation, but because I was planning to haul ass back to the cabin and get that magazine.
As I headed into the woods, I watched her move down the trail. When she was out of sight, I raced through the woods, back to the cabin.
I stepped inside and went straight for the iron skillet, but it wouldn’t come off the counter. It was glued down, as it would be in any exhibit. Of course; I hadn’t thought of that. I tugged hard at the handle, but the skillet wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t any time to mess around, so I jumped up on the counter and kicked the skillet hard.
It budged.
I kicked it again, and it flew off the counter and onto the floor.
I jumped off the counter, scooped it up, raced over to the display case, and smashed the glass with the skillet—shattering it into big chunks on the first hit.
In one swift motion, I reached inside, grabbed the magazine, and tucked it into the back of my pants, under my shirt. But that made way too big of a bulge. Laura would surely spot that I had something back there.
So I pulled it out and tucked it into the front of my pants, down around my thigh, and started toward the door. But my gait was awkward, and she’d pick up on that, too.
I pulled the magazine out again, and considered ripping the Einstein article out. But what if the clue wasn’t in that article? What if it was in the article on Corbin?
There was no time to weigh all the possibilities. Laura was probably already wondering what was taking me so long. I opened the magazine, found the article, and ripped those five pages out.
I folded them, slipped them into my pocket, started toward the door and—
Stopped cold.
Laura was in the doorway. “What the hell are you doing?”
I didn’t have a ready answer.
She stepped inside. “What’s so critical about that magazine that you snuck back in here and destroyed my display to get to it?”
“I can’t tell you.” Because the vortex will kill you.
“Why not?”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
She motioned to the case. “It does now.”
“I was stupid to do that.”
“No, you had to do it. Why?”
“Let’s just go.” I moved toward the door.
She slammed it shut. “I know you didn’t come back to Charlottesville for a job interview. There isn’t a job opening at the Ed School.”
“I can’t talk about this now.”
“When I saw you in the Caves, you said you were visiting Eddie. Well, I checked on that, too. Eddie wasn’t down there.”
“Let’s just go.” Again I made a move toward the door, but she stood in front of it.
“Tell me what’s going on.” This time, there was a hint of desperation in her voice, and that’s what tipped me off. She was pressing me because she was frightened. Frightened of something more than the magazine.
And in that moment, we both looked down to the floor, where liquid was flooding into the cabin from under the door. The smell was unmistakable. It was gasoline.
Laura tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t move.
I raced over and pushed on it. It was sealed shut. My heart sank as I realized I had seen someone out there, but had fallen into his trap anyway. And there was no doubt whose trap this was.
The gasoline was pouring into the cabin, soaking our shoes. “Move to the dry part of the floor,” I said, as I lowered my shoulder and rammed the door. It didn’t give an inch.
I moved over to Laura, and we both took our shoes off and tossed them back to the wet side of the cabin. But the gasoline was quickly making its way toward us, spreading smoothly in all directions.
We jumped onto the cot. I reached out to the wall to keep my balance, and felt heat emanating from the other side.
“The entire place is on fire,” I said, and saw that flames were now rolling inside from underneath the door.
Laura jumped off the cot and ran to the counter, splashing through the gasoline in her bare feet.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to save us,” she said. “Get over here.” She jumped onto the counter.
The flames were sweeping across the floor, and I wondered why taking refuge over there was any better than it was over here. But she knew this cabin better than anyone, so I jumped off the cot, barely outran the tide of flames sweeping across the floor, and jumped onto the counter. “What’s over here?”
She moved across the counter and stepped onto the wood stove. “The stove originally had a pipe going up through the ceiling. I took it out because animals climbed in during the winter. “
In the beamed ceiling I saw a small area, about a foot and a half squ
are, which had been patched from the outside with a board. Laura smacked the board hard, but it didn’t give way. “I nailed it down pretty well and sealed it with epoxy,” she said.
The cot suddenly caught fire and the old mattress instantly burst into flames. A thick, gray smoke began to fill the room.
I stepped on the stove and pounded on the board with Laura. But it was epoxied solidly into place.
I jumped back onto the countertop, bent down, and pulled at the knife that was glued to the counter. Laura was now coughing, and the cabin’s wooden floor itself had caught fire, not just the gasoline.
The knife wouldn’t come loose, so finally I stood up and kicked down on it, hard. That loosened it enough to wrench it free. I handed it to Laura and motioned at the board. “Pry it off.”
While she tried to jam the knife into the space between the board and the ceiling, I kicked at one of the metal plates until it loosened. Then I grabbed it and joined her on the stove.
Coughing and sweating, I tried to squeeze the plate under another side of the board, but the plate was too thick to fit.
Then, as the dark smoke thickened around us, her side creaked and the board rose the tiniest fraction of an inch. I wheeled around and jammed the plate in there, and the board creaked up a little more.
We were now both coughing in spasms, but pressed on. She jammed the knife under another part of the board while I toggled the plate up and down. The board moved up a little farther, exposing the nails that ran down that side.
I started pounding on the board, and she joined in.
As the flames rose up to our feet, two more sides of the board started to give way. Desperate, and choking on the thick smoke, we pounded on the board as if we’d been buried alive—
It suddenly popped free of the nails.
Outside, I could see flames rising up from the sides of the cabin.
We were headed from the frying pan into the fire—literally—but the fire was our best hope.
I cupped my hands. “Go ahead.”
She stepped up into my hands, grabbed my shoulders, and popped her head up through the opening. Then she quickly seized the edges of the opening and struggled to haul herself up. I gave her a boost and, though it was a tight fit—her arms, shoulders and hips all scraped against the edges of the opening—she made it out.
She reached down to help me.
“Go on,” I said, ignoring her outstretched hands. I grabbed the edge of the opening and started to haul myself up, but the opening was so small I couldn’t get any leverage. I did get high enough to see the huge flames licking up from the sides of the cabin. “Go, please!” I said.
Laura moved back, but didn’t take off.
I was straining to pull the rest of my body out when she reached down into the cabin, grabbed me under my shoulders, and pulled hard, scraping more skin off her arms—
That was just enough lift to give me the leverage I needed, and I pushed off the edges and twisted myself up and out.
We both raced across the roof to the side of the cabin. Every side had flames spiking three or four feet high above the roof. Jumping through them to the ground below—about a twelve-foot drop—was the last hurdle.
“You ready?” I said.
She ran to the backside of the cabin. “The ground over here is sloped. It’s less of a jump—”
She didn’t hesitate, and jumped right through the flames.
I ran over and followed her down, hitting the ground hard.
As soon as the impact finished rattling my bones, I heard Laura groaning. She was holding her leg, dragging herself away from the heat of the burning cabin. Her teeth were clenched.
I scrambled over to her, and as I did, she tried to stand up, but fell back down. She couldn’t put any weight on her right leg.
“Is someone trying to kill you?” she asked.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
“So you’re still not going to answer my questions?” She tried to stand up again, hopping up onto one leg, but as soon as her other leg touched the ground, she grunted in pain and fell back down.
I kneeled down to her. “Give me your cell. I’ll call an ambulance.”
“There’s no reception up here.”
“Then we’re going to have to get you down the trail. I can’t leave you alone while I go for an ambulance.” I reached for her, and she latched onto me and stood up. Then, with her leaning on me, keeping her bad leg up, I started around the cabin.
“I was almost fried alive, and you can’t even tell me why,” she said.
Again, that feeling of dread washed over me. Was Van Doran after me, her, or both of us? It was now clear that she, too, recognized the small trails that the new history was blazing through the old.
“I’m so sorry,” I blurted out. Why hadn’t her memories reconstructed themselves?
“Me too,” she said, staring at the raging fire that was once her cabin. “This is connected to Alex, too, isn’t it? That wasn’t just a random hit-and-run.”
If she’s already a target, why not tell her everything? I thought.
“And this wasn’t just a random arsonist?” she said.
“Let’s get to the car.”
We started down the trail.
It was an odd feeling to hold her so close to me, yet not tell her a word of the truth. But I held tough. I wouldn’t tell her the truth unless I knew for sure that Van Doran had already targeted her. I wasn’t going to be the one handing her a death sentence.
My resolve must’ve been palpable, because although she clung tight to me, she didn’t ask me any more questions. When we hit the steepest part of the trail, she grunted and winced as the pain from her leg worsened. I felt her body quiver, ready to collapse, and held on to her more tightly.
We made it to the car, where I helped her into the passenger seat then got behind the wheel. She handed me her keys and said, “Is there something you know that’s worth dying for?”
I keyed the ignition. “Don’t pursue this. You’re teaching at UVA. It’s your dream job come true. Focus on that.” I recognized that advice immediately. It was the advice that I hadn’t heeded.
She didn’t respond.
The trip to the hospital was a silent one.
I sat with her in the waiting room, even though she asked me to leave. As we waited, I wanted to pull out the Fame article. It felt heavy in my pocket, weighted with information that I desperately needed to know. Information that could save both of us.
After about thirty minutes, an orderly came out with a wheelchair, and I helped Laura into it. Then I leaned down, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered into her ear, “I promise I’ll tell you everything when it’s safe.”
I hoped I’d never have to tell her anything at all. I hoped I could fix the changes in history, go back to my time, and continue falling in love with the beautiful Laura Metcalf, the Laura who’d never known anything about this, and who’d never been swept up into the vortex.
The orderly wheeled her away, and I walked out, more in love with her now than I’d been before.
Chapter Seventeen
I headed across the UVA Hospital grounds, on the lookout for a place to sit down so I could dive into the Fame article. I had regrets about leaving Laura’s side, but rationalized them by convincing myself that the arsonist—and, again, I had no doubt it was Van Doran—was after me and not her.
Before I got to Jefferson Park Avenue, I spotted a bench, sat down, and pulled out the Fame article. I pushed away my guilt about leaving Laura and started reading.
The first few paragraphs were a quick summary of the facts, as they were known in the months following Einstein’s disappearance.
Einstein had left for a private conference on Friday. A driver was to bring him back to his home on Sunday at five p.m. At seven, Ruth Meyer reported Einstein missing. But the police weren’t concerned yet.
In a time when communication wasn’t instantaneous, it was possible, if not likely, that the only
problem was that Einstein was late.
Still, Ruth was worried. Einstein had been secretive about his whereabouts and he hadn’t left her any contact information. She wasn’t pleased that he’d left her in the dark. By ten o’clock that night, she was positive that something had gone wrong, and by the morning of the following day, the New Jersey State Police and the FBI were investigating.
Because this article was fresh, just a few months after the disappearance, what followed wasn’t laden with conspiracy theories like the ones I’d read during my Internet search. The reporter came up with a theory, based on real facts, as to where Einstein had gone for this two-day conference.
First, without naming his source—though it was most likely Ruth Meyer herself—the reporter stated that a car with Maryland plates had picked up Einstein. Then the reporter deduced that Einstein would not have gone farther south than Washington, D.C. for any type of conference. He noted that during all the time that Einstein had lived in Princeton, the scientist had never traveled for his work farther south than D.C.
Then the reporter looked into whether there’d been a science-related conference, during the time of the disappearance, either in Baltimore or Washington, D.C.—or anywhere in between. The Maryland plates would fit in with that scenario.
But there hadn’t been any public conference. So the reporter determined that it had been a private meeting. He then explored why such a meeting would be secretive.
Now, this was during the Cold War, so the reporter spoke to other scientists about new technologies that might strengthen the U.S.’s offensive and defensive capabilities. The reporter tried to connect Einstein to some of those technologies, but, in the end, he couldn’t.
Then he looked into Einstein’s primary research passion, his “unified field theory.” Was it possible that the scientist had made a big leap, and that this leap had led to a practical application so powerful that it was being kept under wraps? The reporter reached out to Pentagon and DoD sources, but came up empty.
Then he researched the universities that Einstein might have visited on this trip. The University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Howard, and George Washington, among others. And this led him to a professor of theoretical physics at Johns Hopkins.
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